


Spiral

by somnolentblue



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Gen, Mothers and Daughters, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 17:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2515271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnolentblue/pseuds/somnolentblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequence of moments in the life of Aurora's mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scintilla10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/gifts).



> Dear Scintilla, a belated gift for you. Happy librarying! <3
> 
> Many thanks to cantarina for being a sounding board and to silly_cleo for betaing. All remaining errors are my own, and comments and concrit are welcomed.

Leila gazed at Stefan, the stranger she was marrying, and hoped. She hoped that he would break the obsession with the Moors that had consumed the kings of the Valley, her family, for three generations. If she and her kingdom were fortunate, his destruction of Maleficent was done in the name of power alone, not in the name of glory or vengeance or desire.

She knelt in front of the altar, joined her hand to his, and bowed her head to receive the priest's benediction for their marriage.

***

Leila felt the sparks of her far-distant cousin's magic dance over her skin and shivered. Maleficent's magic raged like Charbydis' own storm, intoxicating after the gentle burble emanating from the hapless trio of pixies. 

In another world, Leila might wish that her great-grandmother, Phoca, queen of the Valley but once daughter of the Moors, had chosen a different path. She might wish that Phoca had reclaimed her selkie skin, given to her husband as her troth and guarded tightly by them both, and returned to her homeland with her young children. She might wish that Phoca had broken her banishment from the Moors, destroying the line of succession in the Valley but giving her children the magic that was their birthright. But in this world the long-dead queen remained in the Valley and faded as her spark withered while her children watched and mourned her for years before she irrevocably stepped onto the shores of death.

In this world Leila damned Stefan for not finishing the job, for taking Maleficent's wings but not her life. Maleficent cursed her daughter, and Leila could not turn the iron words aside. Stefan finished their ruin, banishing Aurora to a life with inept nursemaids and shutting her away from any love that might be her salvation.

Leila smoldered.

***

Leila tasted the thin soup and grimaced. Her kingdom hungered, its once rich coffers spent out on iron and no longer replenished by the profits on cloud-soft yarns and sumptuous fabrics, and its ache gnawed at her. She was bonded to the Valley, her blood and bone forming the sinews of the land. Once upon a time the Valley nourished its queens, letting them sip of its vitality and endurance and granting them long life. However, as her lands withered, abandoned by her subjects and choked with noxious weeds, so did she; she hadn't left her chambers for a week, and she could barely leave her bed to relieve herself.

Stefan refused to leave his brooding before that creature's wings, no matter how often she summoned him to her sickbed or how dire the report of her health.

Her vows to her lands forbade her from leaving. Her vows to herself (to her daughter, blessed and cursed and whisked away) forbade her from staying.

***

Leila inhaled the smell of rotting leather and dusty books. Her head ached from deciphering abstract symbols and runes, there wasn't enough tea in the world to get the taste of dust off the back of her tongue, and her toe throbbed from where she'd dropped a particularly large tome on it. She had burns on her hands from making tinctures and potions, her voice was hoarse from chanting spells, and her hair was shorn to serve as spell components.

It was wonderful.

(She didn't think of the Valley or of her daughter. They were beyond her reach, and letting herself waste away in their name would have served no one but the gravediggers.)

(She'd never been happier.)

***

Leila jumped at the bang of the door. Ursula, her sister-student, rushed into Leila's study, deftly sidestepping a pile of books but stumbling over the edge of the braided rug before skidding to a stop beside Leila and hopping onto her desk. 

"Hey, Leila, you're from the Valley, right? Like, sweet lowlands before broody King Stefan ran everyone out and it was all doom and gloom and woe everywhere?" 

Leila ignored Ursula's kicking feet with the ease of practice and didn't let herself wince at the scrolls the girl had just crushed. Ursula's utter lack of tact was going to get her singed by a dragon some day, but her exuberance made Leila smile more often than not. However, this time was not one of them. 

"Yes," Leila said slowly. "Although I'm not sure how that's relevant to the now."

"Yeah, yeah," Ursula said, "always live in the present moment, the past is a river behind us, et cetera and so forth. But, Leila, have you heard? The king died! There will be a queen! And she's awesome and magical and will rule the Valley _and_ the Moors!"

Leila drew in a sharp breath. "A queen?" she asked. If Maleficent-- if that creature dared to kill her daughter and her husband and take the Valley she would pay. Leila might be forsworn and only halfway through her studies, but she would find a way to make Maleficent suffer for her presumption. 

"Her name's Aurora!" Ursula burbled. "It's so delightfully symbolic! I wonder if Professor Lupa would let me write a paper on the resonances of names. I could probably tie it into my divination paper, although I was going to talk about oneiromancy, but maybe if I talk about Sibyl's dreams I could use that as a transition?" She flopped back across the desk, and Leila spent a moment being glad that her inkwells were enchanted to never spill, even when ridiculous people knocked them right over the edge of the desk. 

Although, really, she didn't have to worry about inkwells anymore. Maybe Ursula would like her office. 

It was time to go home.

***

Leila gazed at Maleficent, observing how the fairy faded into the woods now that she was no longer imbued with the power of the Moors as its queen regnant. Aurora would shine like the north star, now, and Leila could already feel her daughter's magic swelling in response to the Moors' love and the Valley's hope.

"So you gave birth to her," Maleficent said.

Leila inclined her head, once-queen to once-queen. "And you cursed her," she replied.

Maleficent's mouth curved. "And saved her," she pointed out. "Beastie!" she called, and with a rustle of leaves and a suggestion of tiny bells Aurora made her way through the throngs of fairies and sprites and sylphs who were celebrating her coronation.

"Yes, Maleficent?" Aurora said. She furrowed her brow when she saw Leila and said, "Hello, madam."

Leila's jaw clenched, but she refused to let Maleficent — smirking Maleficent, who had reached out and pulled Aurora into her side, claiming her and protecting her, as if Leila would ever hurt her own child — see her pain. 

"Hello, Aurora," Leila said. "I'm your mother."


End file.
